Tech Tip - Big Wall - Hang Your Stove

While there are excellent commercial hanging stoves available, they have two disadvantages. First, they are costly, and second, they only run on canister fuel, which has its problems in cold weather. You can avoid either, or both, of these problems by rigging your own stove to hang.The simplest to set up is a canister design that comes apart beneath the burner neck (figure 1). To hang such a stove, you need a large pot big enough to contain the burner element and pot supports of your stove, with enough space to hold a cooking pot too.Drill, hacksaw, or file a hole in the center of the large pot’s base that accepts the stove burner neck. Make sure the fuel container can be attached. With some designs, such as the Gaz Bleuet, the stove’s pot supports must be removed. In such cases you’ll need to go to the local hardware store, where for a few dollars, the staff will pop-rivet aluminum angle bars to the bottom of the hanging pot. These will support the cooking pot. Drill a series of vents around the center aperture to allow oxygenation while burning.Drill three small holes, evenly spaced around the rim of the larger pot and use 1/16-inch steel cables about two feet long to hang the pot. At a hardware store, have the cables swaged directly to the holes in the pot rim. Alternatively, have loops swaged in the ends of the cables that can then be clipped to the pot.

Swage the cables together at their upper end, making sure they are the right length to allow the system to hang level and are long enough to ensure easy removal of your cooking pot. Lightweight chains also work and don’t require swaging, but can catch on the cooking pot’s edges and may make pushing it in and out more awkward.There are numerous ways to hang a liquid-fuel stove with an off-board fuel tank. Figures 2 and 3 give two well-tested options. The first utilizes an MSR Whisperlite Internationale fitted inside a straight-sided pot. This must be exactly the right size to keep the stove steady. Contributing editor and big-wall pioneer Mark Synnott found his perfect pot, called a “Traveling Light,” at REI, but no doubt others exist. In this case, everything goes inside the big pot except the fuel bottle. A hole is drilled in the pot’s side to allow the fuel line to enter. The fuel line holds the fuel-bottle’s neck, while the rear of the bottle is supported by a hose clamp. Holes are drilled in the base of the pot for oxygenation.

Figure 3. MSR Dragonfly hung from a “Trillium base.” (Windbreaker sheet of aluminum not shown.) Fuel bottle held at rear with single loop of cable.

Figure 3 shows an MSR Dragonfly, with a “Trillium base” (the base is available for all MSR stoves for $19). In this case the stove is hung directly from the base and no large hold-all pot is needed. The cooking pot is held steady by the three cables from which the stove hangs, and the fuel bottle hangs from the fuel line plus a single loop of cable. Note: a windbreaker sheet of aluminum is easily incorporated, though not shown in the diagram.Important: The nylon of tents and ledges is highly flammable. So be very careful running a liquid-fuel stove in or near them. Fire Ribbon, a flammable paste that squeezes out of a tube, is good for priming liquid-gas stoves and will greatly reduce the possibility of dangerous flare-up.